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Comics A.M. | Digital comics milestone; Kickstarter’s patent battle

Digital comics | Following the entry this week by Image Comics into same-day digital release, 40 percent of the comics that debuted in print Wednesday were also available digitally through comiXology. Asking whether day and date comics are “hitting a tipping point,” retailer news and analysis site ICv2 notes: “Publishers are gaining confidence in the concept as evidence grows that day and date releases do not negatively impact print sales. DC’s bold move to convert its entire line to day and date digital with the New 52 has been the clearest indication yet that digital sales are not cannibalizing print.” [ICv2.com]

Legal | Kickstarter, the two-year-old crowd-funding site used by a variety of artists to fund projects, has asked a federal court to declare invalid a patent held by Brian Camelio, who founded ArtistShare in 2000. Camelio, a composer and former studio musician for the rock band Journey, has obtained a patent for a process that resembles Kickstarter’s own crowd-funding model. According to PaidContent, “Kickstarter ask a federal court to declare that the patent is invalid and that the company is not liable for infringement. If the patent, described as ‘methods and apparatuses for financing and marketing a creative work,’ is valid and Kickstarter is infringing, the site could be forced to shut down or pay significant damages.” [PaidContent]

Creators | Stormwatch artist Miguel Sepulveda has signed an exclusive agreement with DC Comics. He joins fellow New 52 artist Mikel Janin, whose deal was announced just last week. [The Source]

Creators | With only a dozen issues left, Garth Ennis talks about the end of The Boys. [MTV Geek, TFAW]

Graphic novels | Nadim Damluji critiques the Orientalism of Craig Thompson’s Habibi, a graphic novel about the Middle East by a creator with little first-hand experience with the region and no knowledge of the language: “I was about the spend a year abroad studying how The Adventures of Tintin is a Orientalist text precisely because Hergé rarely left the confines of Belgium while drawing the far off landscapes of India, Egypt, China, or made-up Arab lands like Khemed. And here was Craig Thompson some 80 odd years later, well intentioned, proposing a very similar project of creating a made-up Arab land of Wanatolia for the purposes of quelling his own guilt. What he called ‘fast and loose,’ I called cultural appropriation.” [The Hooded Utilitarian]

Graphic novels | The first volumes of Kodansha’s Sailor Moon and Codename Sailor V took the top two spots in Bookscan’s September graphic novel sales chart, with perennial chart-topper Naruto relegated to third place. Craig Thompson’s Habibi took the No. 4 slot. The Top 20 featured 12 manga and eight non-manga graphic novels, signaling that rumors of the death of manga may be greatly exaggerated. [ICv2]

Graphic novels | Looking for something to read over the long weekend? The Young Adult Library Services Association of the American Library Association has posted a fresh batch of nominations to its Great Graphic Novels for Teens list, and most of them are good reading for us older folks as well. If you want to nominate a book for the list, do it now; the deadline is October 31. [ALA]